Premier should clear the air at ORNGE inquiry

McGuinty should testify at ORNGE probe and clear the air.

Premier Dalton McGuinty should testify at the inquiry into the ORNGE scandal to clear the air.

Published on Fri Aug 31 2012

Premier Dalton McGuinty, clearly exasperated that the damaging investigation into Ontario’s air ambulance service has dragged on so long, has refused to testify and made it clear he wants the legislative committee conducting the probe to wrap things up.

“I think what we really need from the committee at this point in time is a set of recommendations,” he said. “They’ve had 54 witnesses.”

But the very day after he spoke this past week, witness number 55 dropped a bombshell. Jay Lebo, former executive aid to Chris Mazza, the founder of ORNGE, testified that he was instructed to create false information to mislead the company’s auditors.

“The auditors were asking for the business justification for a number of expenses and I was asked to write the business justifications and back-date them,” he told the committee. “I wrote the business justifications, but I did not back-date them,” said the MBA graduate who was subsequently fired.

This was news to the all-party committee and the public alike.

ORNGE issued a written response that shed no light on the matter. “The allegations raised at today’s public accounts hearing relate to individuals who are longer with the organization.”

It is true the committee has been grilling witnesses, including McGuinty’s senior ministers and closest advisers, for more than five months. Health Minister Deb Matthews has appeared three times. Her predecessor, David Caplan has testified. So has former health minister George Smitherman who created ORNGE in 2006, former Liberal Party president Alf Apps who lobbied the government on behalf of ORNGE, and McGuinty’s former chief of staff Don Guy.

But the buck stops at the premier’s office, and he should be prepared to testify to clear the air.

McGuinty has yet to explain, for example, why he said he’d only met Mazza once, when Mazza testified they’d met three times. He has yet to tell Ontarians why he and his ministers brushed off questions in the legislature 16 months ago about the ballooning cost of the air ambulance service and why it took a string of front page stories by the Star’s Kevin Donovan and a damning report by the province’s auditor general, Jim McCarter, to get the government to take this issue seriously.

For eight months, Donovan has detailed hefty executive salaries hidden from taxpayers, lavish perks, a web of questionable financial deals and a culture of secrecy at the privately run corporation contracted to provide air ambulance service to the Ontario government.

Last March, McCarter confirmed his findings, calling ORNGE “a textbook example” of what happens when a government fails to exercise proper oversight. The indictment covers the spans of three health ministers. The only constant was the premier.

The legislative committee may have been peremptory inviting McGuinty to testify last Wednesday regardless of other responsibilities. Given that he was tied up at a cabinet meeting, it should offer him other dates.

As Lebo told the committee, there were “plenty of secrets at ORNGE.” McGuinty holds the key to one of the biggest: How did this fiasco happen on his watch?

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.